I want mall gift certificates for my birthday. I need new clothes.

When I lived in Lubbock, I'd go weeks and weeks (maybe even two months) without doing laundry. Residing in an apartment without washer/dryer hookups forced me to choose between washing my clothes, etc. at the lint-covered community laundromat, or get to the point where I had absolutely no choice but to wear scandalous undies, even though I would not be wearing pants necessitating the hiding of the panty line. I chose the latter most of the time, waiting until I'd drive to Ruidoso for a holiday or snowboarding to do laundry at home.

These days, I don't know how I accomplished this feat because I refuse to wear about 80% of my wardrobe due to the fact that I hate it, and every last pair of fancy underwear I had remains mysteriously in my ex-boyfriend's possession. Mostly I believe I did this because I was in school and didn't care what I looked like, unless I was going to the bar, at which point I'd bust out my Citizen jeans, a David Bitton shirt, and some BCBG heels. But this got me thinking about how I acquired a stock of clothing, most of which I will not wear but for some reason cannot part with?

"But what if that baby blue sleeveless tee with the ruched sides from Express three years ago comes back in style? It's not that bad..." I say to myself as I try and sort the keepers from the trash.

Some of this sick attachment must stem not only from the fact that I wore many of these items once, twice, or not at all and I feel guilty, but the fact that I paid for it all with my own money, and in the case of all the crap I bought from Express in college, am still paying for. Why did I buy this stuff? When did it become uncool, and how did I like them at one point, and then turn on my once-beloved garments?

I think I once heard on What Not to Wear that if you haven't worn something in a year, you should throw it out. Honestly, if I did this, more than half of the clothes living in my closet would be gone. Could I bear tossing the uni-sleeved shirt that has only been worn once (and not even by me)? What about those khaki pants from Abercrombie I got in like 2000... do I even wear chinos anymore??? What are chinos?

Thus defines my love-hate relationship with clothing. I love clothes, but I want clothes that look cute and won't go out of style so that I will not have wasted my money. But that never happens. Because even if I buy the most simple, classic item on the rack (a black tee for example), it will go out of style for one reason or another. Take into effect that I usually don't wear colors (unless it's my green Vince Vaughn's Wild West Comedy Show t-shirt) and this is not a formula for success. I should probably just move to a nudist colony or become a hippie.

Louis Vuitton: Handbag or instant fashion makeover?

So there is a recurring trend here in Dallas that I felt obligated to write about. It's less about a trend and more about a status symbol or a disease aptly designated as extravagance. It's sort of like a spending spree, followed by bad credit and the repo man, threw up all over Dallas. You'll pass one car on the street and it's a Lexus. The next one will be a Cadillac. The next a Carrera Porsche. The next a BMW... Bentley... you get the idea. Tuesday nights on McKinney, you'll probably even see a Lamborghini. The same goes for the styles of the Louis.

The Louis I speak of is Louis Vuitton, but more specifically, Georges Vuitton, who is Louis' son and the jokester behind the famous monogrammed bags and leather goods so many people own today. The great part is that Wikipedia tells me that just over ONE PERCENT of Louis Vuitton signature goods are NOT counterfeit. Now I know why they all appear to be constructed from textured brown plastic.

Here is what bothers me beyond the fact that the most inexpensive bag they offer still costs about $500 and is the size of a cigarette case: It is the idea that if you carry a Louis bag, it apparently does not matter what you are wearing. It's like the bag is some sort of a magical fashionista cloak (a la Harry Potter's invisibility cloak) that transforms you from dumpy and mismatched to chic and glamorous. I have yet to see a woman put together an outfit that looks good with the bag. I saw a woman at the mall wearing army green capris, a faded black fitted t-shirt, flip-flops, and a like a giant bucket LV bag. Am I supposed to be impressed?

I think that the brains behind Louis Vuitton are disturbingly marketing-savvy and have wicked senses of humor. "Hey, Walter, how do you think we can get women all over the world to buy these grossly overpriced and hideous bags?" "Well, Marie, let's start giving them away to quasi-famous fashion whores and see where that gets us. I hear Jessica Simpson has a new reality show on MTV... we should probably give her a complete set of luggage immediately, if not sooner." "But what if she ruins it, Walter?" "It's ok. We'll give her the counterfeit ones from our factory in Kazakhstan." (insert evil, maniacal laughter)

My advice is save your precious dollars for bags, shoes, designer jeans (guilty!), and whatever else your precious heart desires. If you have Paris Hilton's money, buy every Louis bag that exists, or better yet... have Paris' money, get famous for no reason, and have the bags given to you free of cost, even though you have more money than God. If you don't have the endless supply of money, buy numerous leathery-smelling Coach or Dooney (but not the ones that look like Skittles melted on a styrofoam plate) or Michael Kors or whoever's bags instead of one LV bag that will only hold the trial size of your lip gloss. I personally heart the one at right and my birthday is coming up...